This may be the first Nintendo console I don't get RIGHT AWAY. Actually, I stopped doing that when the 360 launched. I remember how much fun it was as a kid waiting and reading the magazines for a new system and feeling like "OMG I MUST HAVE IT NOW OR MY WORLD WILL END" and doing odd chores for the neighborhood for 6 months to save up enough cash to buy the damned thing. Good times.

Saw a demo station on the weekend, don't see what the fuss is about. To me it just looks like a gimmick attached to another gimmick. Honestly I think first week/month sales will be good and then it's gonna nosedive.

These are not Wii U or Nintendo fans. These are profiteers looking to flip them on eBay or Craigslist for a profit.

And here's the kicker: The demand from real Nintendo fans isn't that high, and Nintendo has said they are making a much larger production run for the holidays than they did with the Wii. With any luck, the flippers will be left with a bunch of Wii U consoles and nobody willing to pay even the MSRP for them because they'll be readily available in most stores a week or two after the initial launch.

At least, that's the hope. It's possible there are so many flippers out there buying up all the stock that it becomes difficult to find one, but again, the demand isn't that high. Most Wii owners aren't even aware there's a new console coming out, and they're not keen on spending $300 for it when they learn about it.

My advice: Sit back with some popcorn and watch the show. After the holidays, a lot of profiteers will be regretting their decision to buy multiple consoles.

Flappyhead:Saw a demo station on the weekend, don't see what the fuss is about. To me it just looks like a gimmick attached to another gimmick. Honestly I think first week/month sales will be good and then it's gonna nosedive.

rocky_howard:Flappyhead: Saw a demo station on the weekend, don't see what the fuss is about. To me it just looks like a gimmick attached to another gimmick. Honestly I think first week/month sales will be good and then it's gonna nosedive.

Rob was a gimick, portable was not, the snes wasn't bashed for anything, the n64 and gcn were both outsold.

The DS and wii i'll give you, although wii sales did nosedive by the last couple of years.

Wii U i'm on the fence about, nothing so far seems really that interesting, but there is room for future promise. Might pick it up by the time Zelda or metroid hit though. Probably not a day before though.

I hacked mine well over a year ago thinking I'd play it more if I could get everything, including Wiiware/Virtual Console games, for free.

Time spent researching, hacking it, and installing games and apps? A few hours.

Time I've played the console since then? Maybe an hour.

Doesn't help that it can't hold many N64 or NeoGeo games before the HD is full. Lame as fark.

I'd sooner get rid of my Wii than my Dreamcast, and I say that as someone who only plays fighting games very casually and who doesn't really like scmups.

Hell, I'd sooner get rid of my Wii than my Gamecube.

/ Because playing Gamecube games on the Wii is that annoying.// Wii's central gimmick is pointless once you realize playing it vigorously causes RSIs much faster than real physical activity, and you start just flicking your wrist for everything.

I hacked mine well over a year ago thinking I'd play it more if I could get everything, including Wiiware/Virtual Console games, for free.

Time spent researching, hacking it, and installing games and apps? A few hours.

Time I've played the console since then? Maybe an hour.

Doesn't help that it can't hold many N64 or NeoGeo games before the HD is full. Lame as fark.

I'd sooner get rid of my Wii than my Dreamcast, and I say that as someone who only plays fighting games very casually and who doesn't really like scmups.

Hell, I'd sooner get rid of my Wii than my Gamecube.

/ Because playing Gamecube games on the Wii is that annoying.// Wii's central gimmick is pointless once you realize playing it vigorously causes RSIs much faster than real physical activity, and you start just flicking your wrist for everything.

I don't believe you, considering you need an SD card to hack the damned thing

rocky_howard:Flappyhead: Saw a demo station on the weekend, don't see what the fuss is about. To me it just looks like a gimmick attached to another gimmick. Honestly I think first week/month sales will be good and then it's gonna nosedive.

rocky_howard:Flappyhead: Saw a demo station on the weekend, don't see what the fuss is about. To me it just looks like a gimmick attached to another gimmick. Honestly I think first week/month sales will be good and then it's gonna nosedive.

N64 and GCN had some of the worst controller designs ever to grace a console, and ended up impairing the development of games. PS/PS2 controllers are still some of the best.

The Wii is a forgettable game system, hamstrung by technical limitations, clever technical achievement though. The Xbox 360 and PS3 are better platforms.

The Wii U looks okay for a current generation console, but the next Xbox/PS4 should launch next year. And they'll outclass nintendo's offerings again. Before the 'lol grafix whor3s' comments, the major 3rd party devs are going to develop games for the PS4/Xbox specs. Then look at the WiiU technical limitations and again pass on porting the titles over.

I remember the Genesis/SNES biatch fights. Console company fanboyism is sad.

The Wii U looks okay for a current generation console, but the next Xbox/PS4 should launch next year. And they'll outclass nintendo's offerings again. Before the 'lol grafix whor3s' comments, the major 3rd party devs are going to develop games for the PS4/Xbox specs. Then look at the WiiU technical limitations and again pass on porting the titles over.

Citation Needed Part Deux. Sony/MS new consoles won't be here until at least mid-late 2014.

And tell me again how the PS2 being weaker than the GCN and XBX meant 3rd party devs abandoned it. Oh wait, since it had a humongous userbase Devs supported the hell out of it and made it the premier console of the early 2000s.

Also, tell me how well all those GameGear, PSP* and PSP Vita development are going. Power is irrelevant. History has shown that the weakest console almost always ends up winning the sales war.

Devs supported 360/PS3 more because their combined audience is larger than the Wii and porting a game from one to another is seamless since they're essentially the same console. If 360/PS3 were more different between themselves, you'd see more devs supporting the Wii.

The Wii U looks okay for a current generation console, but the next Xbox/PS4 should launch next year. And they'll outclass nintendo's offerings again. Before the 'lol grafix whor3s' comments, the major 3rd party devs are going to develop games for the PS4/Xbox specs. Then look at the WiiU technical limitations and again pass on porting the titles over.

Citation Needed Part Deux. Sony/MS new consoles won't be here until at least mid-late 2014.

And tell me again how the PS2 being weaker than the GCN and XBX meant 3rd party devs abandoned it. Oh wait, since it had a humongous userbase Devs supported the hell out of it and made it the premier console of the early 2000s.

Also, tell me how well all those GameGear, PSP* and PSP Vita development are going. Power is irrelevant. History has shown that the weakest console almost always ends up winning the sales war.

Devs supported 360/PS3 more because their combined audience is larger than the Wii and porting a game from one to another is seamless since they're essentially the same console. If 360/PS3 were more different between themselves, you'd see more devs supporting the Wii.

I have to say I'm intrigued by the WiiU, both as a game machine and also by its home-media center capabilities.

I'll probably pick one up eventually, but I might wait until it gets a Zelda. I don't care if people say the series is tired, I'm still a sucker for Zelda games. In fact, i beliee the last game I sunk 40+ hours into was Skyward Sword.

Heliodorus:N64 and GCN had some of the worst controller designs ever to grace a console, and ended up impairing the development of games. PS/PS2 controllers are still some of the best.

Honestly, I thought the GameCube controller was great and ergonomic, especially for someone with big hands. The play station controllers always gave my hands cramps, but the GameCube controllers never did.

The Wii U looks okay for a current generation console, but the next Xbox/PS4 should launch next year. And they'll outclass nintendo's offerings again.

Neither of those successor consoles have even been officially announced yet. Assuming they're announced at E3 2013, if history is any guide, that will mean a 2014 launch, most likely for the holiday season.

By that point, the WiiU will have been on the market for two full years, and may have even gone through one round of price cuts. It should have built up a pretty solid market position by that point.

I wouldn't have minded the Wii so much if more of its games had the option of using a normal controller, but I do not have the patience to swing my arms around like a spastic nerf bag in a vain attempt to get my character to mimic my imprecise and entirely detached motions in some manner.

Toss in the shiatty graphics and the fact that the vast majority of games outside the Mario and Zelda series were complete garbage aimed at children and stay-at-home moms and I think I'll pass on this one, at least initially.

I basically paid $250 for my Wii so I could watch Netflix movies at 480p. And even that's a struggle because the Wii has an absolute shiatfit over working properly with my wireless gaming router half the time. So, yea. Not super excited about their next mediocre game device.

I get the allure for some people, I really do, but as a gamer somewhere between the "hardcore" idiots who have confused Call of Duty and World of Warcraft with real life and the 45 year old "cooking mamas" who have all the hand-eye coordination of a pet rock, it doesn't do a lot for me, personally.

Doc Daneeka:I have to say I'm intrigued by the WiiU, both as a game machine and also by its home-media center capabilities.

I'll probably pick one up eventually, but I might wait until it gets a Zelda. I don't care if people say the series is tired, I'm still a sucker for Zelda games. In fact, i beliee the last game I sunk 40+ hours into was Skyward Sword.

Yep. There aren't enough Zelda like games out there. The Darksiders series comes close, but I breezed through them in half the time it takes to go through a Zelda game. All the side quests and everything else means a lot of play time.

Of course, the downside to that is that they only release them every five years because they take some farking long to make.

The only reason I'm interested in the WiiU. Still going to wait for reviews and not picking up the system launch day, but the gameplay videos made this look potentially badass. Hacking a door on the touchscreen while frantically looking over your shoulder at the approaching hoard looks like too much fun.

rocky_howard:Flappyhead: Saw a demo station on the weekend, don't see what the fuss is about. To me it just looks like a gimmick attached to another gimmick. Honestly I think first week/month sales will be good and then it's gonna nosedive.

The Wii U might not be a failure, but it won't be anywhere near as successful as the Wii. I just don't see casual gamers, and places like retirement homes shelling out money for what seems to be a minimal upgrade to the Wii.

After how much dust the Wii has collected on my shelf, I'm waiting to see how many worthwhile games get released for it before even considering buying the system. Mario and Zelda is great, but I really need more than that to justify a whole new system.

I don't know if the system will be a failure, but it certainly is a marketing failure. Did the PR guys who got the Wii on every daytime morning show and plastered all over everything retire? Because they've done a horrible job advertising this thing.

Goddammitsomuch... my kids want one of these for Xmas, and I'd like to pick it up now so that I don't have to think about it again, but every - EVERY - store in my area is sold out of their "advance sale" units and can't even tell me if they'll have any extras beyond those units already spoken for. Their suggestion was to come in at 7:00 AM on Sunday to "see what we have." Or I can go on eBay and buy one for $500+ from a profiteer, which isn't going to happen.

So I call upon the wisdom of Farkers everywhere: do you all expect a shortage of these things for the Xmas season, or is it just a lot of hype to drive up sales?

Flappyhead:Saw a demo station on the weekend, don't see what the fuss is about. To me it just looks like a gimmick attached to another gimmick. Honestly I think first week/month sales will be good and then it's gonna nosedive.

eh, tablet-to-tv streaming over wifi miracast is something every tablet maker and phone maker wants to make a reality, it's not really a gimmick, Nintendo is just doing it first because they didn't need to transmit a 1080p signal since there's a console there to do that over hdmi

i think the universal remote feature and maybe even their tv service will become the norm next gen, or at least consumers will expect it from the others

i do wonder too if the touchscreen will become a norm, but we'll see on that... i know i had issues with a demo station not knowing which screen to look at and having to refocus looking back and forth became irritating when there's a lot of action going on... but that may or may not be something we simply get used to - i mean i remember people playing geometry wars on SD tv's because they said it was easier to play on a smaller tv, but nobody has that issue anymore

Vash's Apprentice:rocky_howard: Flappyhead: Saw a demo station on the weekend, don't see what the fuss is about. To me it just looks like a gimmick attached to another gimmick. Honestly I think first week/month sales will be good and then it's gonna nosedive.

Barricaded Gunman:Goddammitsomuch... my kids want one of these for Xmas, and I'd like to pick it up now so that I don't have to think about it again, but every - EVERY - store in my area is sold out of their "advance sale" units and can't even tell me if they'll have any extras beyond those units already spoken for. Their suggestion was to come in at 7:00 AM on Sunday to "see what we have." Or I can go on eBay and buy one for $500+ from a profiteer, which isn't going to happen.

So I call upon the wisdom of Farkers everywhere: do you all expect a shortage of these things for the Xmas season, or is it just a lot of hype to drive up sales?

It's hard to say, the Wii was hard to find because Nintendo didn't supply to the demand in a timely fashion. With the WiiU they have said this will not be as big of a problem, they will resupply faster. There is also less of a demand compared to how hyped the Wii was. However there's no real 'must-have' toy on the market, so the WiiU might fill that position this holiday season.

Some stores have a waiting list for resupplies. I'd recommend finding one that does and getting on a list. If in a few weeks it looks bleak, then deal with eBay.

NeoCortex42:The Wii U might not be a failure, but it won't be anywhere near as successful as the Wii. I just don't see casual gamers, and places like retirement homes shelling out money for what seems to be a minimal upgrade to the Wii.

After how much dust the Wii has collected on my shelf, I'm waiting to see how many worthwhile games get released for it before even considering buying the system. Mario and Zelda is great, but I really need more than that to justify a whole new system.

it's difficult to say if any of the console makers will sell as many next gen units as their predecessors, the financial model that's worked for decades has basically exploded inside out - the $60 blockbuster AAA game is actually far riskier now than it was 5 years ago and is exponentially getting costlier to make, the digital market has eclipsed retail, and consumer mindshare is extremely fragmented compared to 2006 when gaming was practically exclusive to nintendo/sony/microsoft or a PC

sony at least got the PS3 into China so they've got that going for them, there's less room to grow in Japan/NA/Europe more than ever now

i fully expect the WiiU to be successful for nintendo tho, they still have enough mindshare and price competitiveness to make a profit